[Belin]

Remdil pressed his horse ahead, resisting the temptation to think, since he disliked the directions he knew his thoughts would take. The situation was not, could not be hopeless; they had two guides and Eolinda with them.

These authorities themselves seemed less sanguine about their possibilities. Nobody had spoken for hours, and the silence was as grim as the boy's deathgrip on Remdil's waist.

On they rode, through the rain. As the days passed, Remdil grew more and more successful at avoiding the disturbing ideas that plagued the others. As the boy looked grave, as Eolinda grew tense and even Dineniel became moodier, Remdil simply gained in intensity. He didn't know whether it had been two days, or three, or four, but there was a hill, over there, which he could very well imagine, and a tree, under which sat Livia.....

Eolinda worried as much about him as about her daughter. His fevered, restless eyes troubled her, and there was something about his careless willingness to ride on all night, if she didn't stop him, that she didn't entirely like either. She wondered if he were ill, but she hesitated to speak to him of such possibilities in his current state of mind.

But the boy was delightful. He listened to every story she told at night, and as she stopped on this particular night, she hoped to hear some of his.